‘They’re good, these people. Cold readers, conmen. They make a lot of money from what they do.’

‘He hasn’t asked for money.’

‘Not yet.’

Vincent shook his head ruefully. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s just messing with me. But…’ He stopped talking, probably playing back all the things Ellis Brown had told him. ‘I’m just so tired.’

‘Me too,’ Petra said. ‘I haven’t slept properly since that show. God, I feel so… foolish. Betrayed.’

Thump thump thump sounded again from across the park, and now there was another laugh. No, not a laugh – a stifled cry. Security lights had flicked on in the houses overlooking the dell.

Petra stood up, took a few paces towards the boys, vague now through the tendrils of fog.

‘What’s up?’ Vincent said.

Petra didn’t say anything, put her hand out towards him: wait there. She went closer to the boys and now she could see through the fog, all three boys alive. The tall one who’d been banging the bin had flung the stick aside and was smiling at her sheepishly.

Vincent had trailed her steps. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I thought I saw something that wasn’t there.’

14 ‘Mom, can I come over this morning?’

‘Are you alright, love?’

Petra looked through her narrow window, down at Regent Street, the peeling map in the shuttered travel shop, the homeless man’s bundle of orange sleeping bag in the doorway. ‘I’m fine. I’m just feeling… not great. I’d just like to come visit before I go to work.’

‘Sure, of course. Come along. Ida’s here, but she won’t mind.’

‘Who’s Ida?’

‘Ha ha. Funny girl. See you now-now. Pick up some coffee and milk on your way, won’t you?’

* * *

Petra heard the women laughing as she came out of the stairwell and turned along the third-floor corridor. Her mother’s earthy bray, designed and developed in a distant country where there was more space, along with the thin chime of someone else. Through the small kitchen window that looked out onto the corridor, she heard their conspiratorial voices, then another volley of laughter. Petra hadn’t heard her mother laugh like that for ages, wasn’t sure if she’d ever made her mother laugh that genuinely, so deeply from the gut.

‘Door’s open, love,’ Helena called through the kitchen window as she saw her pass.

Petra shouldered through the door and closed and latched it behind her – sure, this was Leamington, not Joburg, but her mother shouldn’t be leaving her door unlocked anyway. Helena was carrying a tray with a jug of lemonade and the smart green-and-yellow art deco glasses she kept at the back of the cabinet. She pecked Petra on her cheek as she passed and left her to unpack the groceries as she continued the conversation with her friend.

‘And then when I showed her the sketch, she pretended she didn’t recognise herself,’ Helena was saying. ‘A bloody cheek, hey?’

‘It was a perfect likeness.’ The other woman’s voice was softer, a demure hybrid of a Midlands accent, but with a clear tone that carried perfectly into the kitchen. ‘You captured her essence, Hellie.’